Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Guy Opperman and David Duguid

Thursday 8th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

T3. Fraserburgh-based Gray & Adams is the UK’s pre-eminent manufacturer of refrigerated trailers—I am told they were involved in the design of regulations in the early days of refrigerated transport. Will the Minister meet me and Gray & Adams’s management and engineers to see what can be done to ensure that regulations are updated at a pace that keeps up with the ongoing innovations made by that great example of British manufacturing?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Guy Opperman)]

My hon. Friend has been a fantastic champion for Fraserburgh and for that business in particular. I know very well the issue in respect of longer semi-trailers and compliance with the regulations. I would be delighted to meet him and the company, and I assure both the company and the wider industry that we are working to find a way forward on this question, because it matters and we want to support that business.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Guy Opperman and David Duguid

Monday 13th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

The hon. Lady will be aware that pension credit applications are up 75%. Clearly, we are trying to get that even higher. There is a nationwide campaign, which includes Scotland.

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

According to the latest figures, there are 1,825 households receiving pension credit in Banff and Buchan, but what more can we do as Members of Parliament to encourage more pensioners to apply?

[Guy Opperman]

My hon. Friend’s campaign in his constituency has been a massive success and I thank him for that. It builds on our nationwide campaign to support pension credit. There is much we can do to promote it locally, which I know my hon. Friend is doing, through our local councils, Citizens Advice and voluntary organisations.

Pension Funds: Financial and Ethical Investments

Debate between Guy Opperman and David Duguid

Wednesday 22nd May 2019 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Guy Opperman)]

This Parliament accepts that there is a climate emergency, and this debate, which I am delighted so many colleagues have embraced this afternoon, has focused on the following key issues: the change that clearly is taking place in our climate; the role of the consumer; the choices that are available to the individual parties that we are dealing with; and, ultimately, the role of capitalism and its ability to assist in addressing these particular problems.

We should trumpet the success of successive Governments of different persuasions, leading up to the coalition and this Government, in leading the way in the G20 and reducing our CO₂, and we should celebrate the quadrupling of our renewable capacity, but we clearly must do more. We should celebrate the fact that, as my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) said, on the May bank holiday Britain had burned no coal for electricity for a week—the longest period without coal since the industrial revolution.

Although we celebrate these good things, they are patently not enough. Although we will plant more forests, recycle more and, crucially, try to engage our consumers, our citizens, our constituents to change their behaviour, we do, I suggest, need capitalism to save the day. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) that we need to urge local authorities to focus on the clean growth strategy that has been set out by the Government to address the way we do housing and the way we do energy on a localised basis. I believe very strongly—any Conservative will make the case—that capitalism is a force for good, because we need technological innovation to solve the climate change issues, and innovative start-ups will be needed to address the access to capital and the changes that are required.

[David Duguid]

Many hon. Members have spoken about the need for transparency regarding the kinds of companies that are being invested in. Does the Minister agree that that transparency should include the work already done by large oil and gas companies to invest in the innovation he is talking about? It is not only small start-ups that do this innovation; the large companies with large resources behind them are already investing in it heavily. As the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey) mentioned, the 1.3% invested by the 13 or so companies that are part of the oil and gas climate initiative works out at approximately $100 million a year. That is a very large number, even though the percentage sounds small.

[Guy Opperman]

I accept my hon. Friend’s point. The crucial point is that natural gas had been one of the biggest parts of reducing carbon dioxide in the electricity sector. Hydrogen derived from natural gas will decarbonise heating for homes and transport. The large companies are leading the way on carbon capture and storage. We must work with them to ensure that the successes, which we all want to see, continue.

We can see the changes that are taking place. Individual companies must answer for themselves. Last year, Shell, one of the largest companies that we are debating, agreed to link its executive pay to its carbon emission targets, in direct response to particular shareholders. The Minister for Energy and Clean Growth, my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Claire Perry), would be here if she could, to make the case for the Government’s clean growth strategy and the green agenda. Like her, I urge individual consumers—anybody who has a particular pension—to make the case to their trustees as to how that is being invested.